Websites offer many products and services to consumers. Millions of websites exist, and the number continues to grow. Because such a large number of websites is available, visitors have ready alternatives. Thus, many will simply abandon a website if the visitor experience seems unsatisfactory, and a potential sale is lost. As a consequence, website operators compete aggressively to attract and retain visitors, and further compete to convert website visits into sales.
A satisfactory visitor experience is more likely to result in a sale than an unsatisfactory one. Factors affecting the visitor experience occur in real time and may include questions regarding pricing, selection, product and service descriptions; and warranty, return, and shipping policies. Website navigability and responsiveness (performance) are also factors. Website performance may be influenced by the web browser or application used by the visitor, e.g., Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, or by a mobile application. The platform on which the browser or application operates, e.g., a desktop or mobile device, may also influence performance. Similar issues exist with respect to navigating physical locations such as a store, and consumer interaction with email messages directed to consumers by a vendor.
Website operators have powerful incentives to enhance the visitor's experience by, e.g., engaging the visitor in real time with a human agent via, e.g., a written or oral conversation, or “live-chat.” The task is daunting, however, because websites may attract tens of thousands of visitors at any given moment, and there are typically too few agents to serve every visitor. It is therefore necessary to provide information and tools to agents that enable them to rank, e.g., to prioritize and group, visitors, and to determine which visitor should be engaged first in a website, a physical site, or in a messaging environment. For example, a store having a suboptimal physical layout may nevertheless provide a satisfactory visitor experience, e.g., by helping the visitor expeditiously select a product and receive a discount, through agent assistance via, e.g., a smart phone. As with browsing in an electronic environment, e.g., a website, experiential data relating to physical activity, e.g., product interest based on location and time information, time spent in a store aisle, and time spent viewing a product, are collected with respect to a visitor browsing a physical environment.